


Caring to share

by brittlestars



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Being able to hear your classmates whispering about you probably makes classroom anxiety even worse, Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson at Columbia, St. Agnes Orphanage (Marvel), Supersenses and how to have them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brittlestars/pseuds/brittlestars
Summary: Foggy rescues a baby bird, Matt skips class, and they finally hold hands.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 16
Kudos: 68





	Caring to share

**Author's Note:**

> There's some casual ableism directed at Matt here. It's not the main driver of the plot or any character's motivations, but it does compound commonplace classroom anxiety.

"Would you care to share with the class, Mr. Murdock?" 

Matt slams his mouth shut, not having managed to stifle his genuine laughter. 

Class was boring, as it always was with Ms. Riddick at the helm. She ascribed to old school lecture techniques. _Very_ old school, where teachers were called "readers" and stood behind a podium reading the textbook word for word. Back then, only the instructor had access to the textbook. Ms. Riddick didn't seem to realize that times had, indeed, changed for the more accessible (mostly). Matt suspected this was because Ms. Riddick had first started teaching back in the days of chalk and personal slates and possibly coal-fired engines.

So his mind had wandered. And, accordingly, so had his senses. 

Part of him had been paying attention to Foggy, who was walking halfway across campus. It felt inevitable that'd he'd tuned into Foggy. It was alarming how quickly Matt had fallen into the habit, and even more alarming how quickly he'd come to accept it. Stick would be appalled, but then Stick was gone, and Foggy, for all they'd only met a few months ago, seemed determined to stick with Matt through thick and thin. It made Matt feel warm in a way he couldn't quite understand, or even fathom. All he knew was that a once-empty place inside him was now glowing warm at the thought of Foggy, and that the fire seemed to grow a little more intense every day, even in the most stressful or hectic times. Perhaps even then the most, by contrast. 

Matt had interrupted Ms. Riddick on what was undoubtedly another scintillating recitation with a sharp bark of a laugh. Foggy had been humming under his breath and strolling along, unhurried, toward the building Matt was in. Foggy didn't have class this afternoon; he was just coming to pick Matt up so they could get a late lunch. 

Matt's private warmth swelled at that. 

But then Foggy had let out a startled squeal and there was a sudden fumbling noise and a sharp exhalation. 

"Up you get, Fogs," Foggy told himself, "you're not hurt. It's like mama Nelson always said: 'there's a use for the soft places God gave you.'" He paused for a second, shuffling, and Matt tried to decipher what Foggy was implying when he said. "Mama probably didn't mean all this extra padding, but... no bruises and I'll take that as a win." 

Here, Matt had laughed and Ms. Riddick had dropped her book to the podium, zeroing in on him with precision. 

"Would you care to share with the class, Mr. Murdock?" 

Matt's attention snapped back to the lecture hall, shattering his daydream-like eavesdropping on Foggy's good-hearted tumble off the sidewalk. 

"Um," Matt says. Then he frowned. He despised himself when he failed to be articulate, especially in front of teachers. (Though he barely thought Ms. Riddick qualified.) 

"I'm waiting, Mr. Murdock. We all are. What, precisely, do you find so funny about the reversal of labor union protections during the automotive workers' strike?"

And, suddenly, Matt feels his mind pitched back in time. He feels very small, and young, and vulnerable. He is lost in a personal darkness that is new, and loud, disorienting and utterly confusing. A sharp voice cuts through the cacophony, right above and around him. 

"Do you have something to share with the rest of the class, Matthew?" 

Young Matthew swallows, tries to center himself in the room, in the chair, anywhere but the surrounding building, the surrounding city block, the surround five boroughs and the tumbling, roaring airspace above them. He feels like he's in the classroom and in the Hudson and inside Sister Catherine's rumbling stomach and wet, drippy, crunchy lungs all at the same time. The sounds taste terrible and the nun's voice feels like the shudder of nails catching on dry chalk as it drags and drags and drags across the uneven surface of the ancient, cracked chalkboard. 

Young Matthew swallows again. "No," he attempts. 

A crack like a thousand crashes of thunder rips through his skull. He feels it in every bone as Sister Catherine slams a ruler on his desk, millimeters from his tiny, round fingers and their much-chewed nails. Matthew jolts backward, tipping over his chair and stumbling. He grabs for his desk wildly, barely holding himself upright with sweaty palms. 

He can feel the echoes of the ruler's slap through the wood of his desk. The chair is crashing to a million shattered pieces all around him, in his teeth and his hair.

His classmates are laughing and whispering like yells on every side. 

"No?" Prompts Sister Catherine, voice icy. 

Matt knows that tone of voice, and it's enough to snap some small part of his attention back to her. 

"No, ma'am," he manages, body trembling but voice steady, if so, so quiet. 

"I can't hear you, Matthew." 

"No, ma'am. I have nothing to share at this time." He repeats, jaw tipping up. The defiance is grounding. 

"Alright," Sister Catherine says, softening just a touch. See seems to have seen through Young Matthew's steady voice and recognized his trembling. She bends down, rights his chair, and quietly guides Matt to it with steady hand. 

He has nothing to share. Not one of them would understand. Even newly orphaned and drowning in the screaming pain of his remaining senses, he knows that much already. He knows that, for so long as he lives, he won't be ready to share. 

"Quiet now, class!" Sister Catherine says sternly, and the young children snap to attention. "We can see this is why we must always be thinking in the service of others, rather than ourselves. Young Matthew has shown us this error by taking our time and not giving back of himself. We'd all do well to learn from his poor example." She pats the top of Matt's head and he stiffens. "But then, one supposes it can't be helped." As she walks forward, she concludes, "Let us always remember to have pity for those less fortunate than ourselves."

At any later point, this sort of talk would feed Matt's hidden rage to a boiling point. But, back then, he was too young and shocked to do more than continue trembling, feeling like he'd explode from all the sounds pouring in and emotions swelling up. He'd been young and vulnerable and unready, but he had survived that session of being called upon and vowed to never, ever let someone else's trivialization define him. 

Though it would occur again and again and again in his life, he never stopped hating being pointed at as if he were a prop in a lesson. But he also never let the pain slip deep in his heart like it had with Sister Catherine. Stick had given him the tools to be sure of that: His dad had gifted him determination and grit, but it had been Stick who took that iron will and honed it so that Matt could bottle up, chin up, and keep going in the face of emotional abuse.

He unclenches his fists. He's already aware of the distance to the door, to the windows, but he finds himself actively mapping out the route in his mind. His muscles are loose and ready. 

"If you have nothing to add, Mr. Murdock," Ms. Riddick is saying, "Then perhaps you can help us get back on track by summarizing where we were before felt the... urge to interrupt?" 

"With all due respect," Matt begins, meaning no respect at all, "I finished that text three weeks ago, despite having to find an accessible copy myself when the school failed to provision one. I have since moved on to more up-to-date material and, frankly, don't have a clue how far you are behind right now."

Matt hears gasps from all around, though they're too quiet for Ms. Riddick. For everyone else, the tension is so still even they could hear the proverbial pin drop.

Ms. Riddick, to her credit, does not rise to the bait of swift or falsely righteous anger. "I have had," she says in a cool, measured tone, "many a student who has claimed to be an autodidact. Few have successfully embodied this claim. However, you are of course free to follow in their foolish footsteps in the attempted endeavor if you so choose. Your scholarly reputation precedes you, Mr. Murdock, and I would be very pleased if you were to prove to be the exception to the pattern. I only ask that, for their sake, you do not distract from the learning of your more modestly paced peers."

Matt, startled at her frankness, simply nods once, short and sharp. She returns the nod despite having no way of understanding that Matt can perceive it, which, okay, is a gesture Matt really appreciates. The whole situation is disarming: it's eerily similar to his childhood experiences being called out (Sister Catherine was the first of many) but also different in the undercurrent of respect. 

"Your final essay is due the 12th. Don't ask for an extension. That goes for the rest of you as well," she addresses the class, "but doubly so for anyone who opts to sit out of a lecture they don't find... productive."

Matt understands this is his cue, as permission to slip out quietly right then and there and never have to return to this mind-numbingly boring lecture again. Matt steels himself. He's never cut class before, not since he started college and had to pay for the classes himself.

Out on the sidewalk, he hears Foggy cooing at the small creature he tripped himself to avoid stepping on. "Oh, hello there little one! I'm glad I didn't squish you. You're so tiny, yes you are. Don't worry, one day you'll grow big and strong and have very handsome padding just like your ol' pal Foggy. Here, let's get you back to the nest with the others..." 

Foggy's voice is soft, but it's everything his classmates' whispers aren't. 

Matt very carefully tucks away his tape recorder (he hadn't turned it on) and his various other materials. Ms. Riddick has already returned to her regular pacing back and forth in front of the room, quoting verbatim from the textbook she long ago must have memorized. If nothing else, she has voluminous memory, Matt concedes, and probably many, many repetitions. 

He waits until she's just turned and ducks out the door on silent feet, grateful of his habit of sitting near quick escape routes. 

Matt finds Foggy underneath a tree at the edge of the quad. He makes sure to tap his cane extra loud on the footpath, slowing his walk as he nears his roommate. 

As if Foggy's ears are trained for the sound of the cane, his heartbeat and breathing pick up a few seconds before he turns toward Matt, wiping off his hands on the front of his jeans. He inhales and then shouts, "Matt! Over here, your two o'clock. On the grass." 

"Foggy?" Matt feigns. 

"The one and only." 

"Well, hi, I guess." 

"You're out early."

Matt pauses a second too long and then nods, stiff. "I, uh... I got out early, yea. I'm surprised you're here already!" He tries to cover with.

In truth, he's not surprised, though he's very happy Foggy's there, regardless. The thing is, Foggy always comes early and waits for Matt. Foggy doesn't think a thing of it to forgo lunch on Thursdays so he can eat with Matt at 4pm after Matt's recitation session with Ms. Riddick. It's like it never even crosses Foggy's mind to be anything other than unfailingly friendly with Matt. Even after these several months, Matt's still kind of reeling from the warmth of it. 

"Well, that just means more time for you to meet my new friend!" 

"Oh?" Matt says, quirking a curious brow. "Is she hot?" 

"Matthew!" 

"Or he! Are they hot?" Matt's still kind of new to Foggy's whole out-and-proud thing, but he's learning and trying to get things right.

"Kinda... fuzzy?" Foggy offers. 

Matt bursts out laughing. 

"Is fuzzy good?" He finally asks when he catches his breath, "Do we-- Do we like fuzzy?" 

"Hell yea, man, we like fuzzy." Matt finds himself contemplating growing a beard, but Foggy blusters on, "Especially when it the fuzz on a baby bird!" 

Foggy leads Matt over to the tree, where Matt can hear three impossibly tiny hearts beating rapidly in a smudge of warmth in the crook of some branches above their heads. 

Foggy pauses at the trunk. "Alright, I don't quite know how we're gonna do this but," he drops his canvas messenger bag to the grass, "you're gonna need to climb this tree." 

Matt chuckles. "I'm not sure that's really necessary." 

"Matt, I need you to experience for yourself how cute this bird is."

"I'm sure your description will more than suffice." In fact, he's sure Foggy's description will probably add huge, watery eyes and feeble chirping pleas for a big, strong, soft human to come to the rescue. And maybe some laser traps or deadly sharks for said brave human to dodge when coming to the rescue. Really, Foggy's description will be even more wonderfully wacky than that, because Foggy's always trying to one-up his past self in making Matt laugh, and that's just one of the many things Matt delights in about Foggy. 

Another is that Foggy always manages to surprise him.

"Words cannot do this bird justice." Foggy drops to his hands and knees. "Take a step forward." 

Matt takes a small step forward. 

"No, like, a regular step. C'mon, you know what I mean when I say 'a step.' Don't mess with the system." 

Matt takes another step forward and bumps his knee into Foggy's shoulder. 

"Climb up, man. Reach out and you can grab the trunk. The nest is about ten feet off the ground, so you should be able to get to it if you're on my shoulders."

Matt makes a token effort of declining, but Foggy insists that he's got "a fine, strong back and very shapely shoulders, from all those Thanksgivings playing flag football with the cousins" and Matt doesn't really have it in his heart to say no. And it's not like he can explain to Foggy how he can already hear and smell and even feel the birds from there on the ground, if he pays enough attention. 

It's a ridiculous, clumsy affair but eventually they're both leaning against the trunk of the oak with Matt straddling Foggy's shoulders. Matt can hear Foggy's labored breathing but it's equally from the laughter as it is from the strain. 

"Here," Foggy offers and then Matt's clenching his knees and thighs to hold and Foggy lurches them to the side, grasping for Matt's cane. "You want your cane, buddy?" 

"Why would I...?" 

"How else are you gonna 'see' them?" 

"I'm not going to stab a nest full of baby birds."

Matt's got a branch in one hand and gropes about with the other until he bumps into the edge of the nest. At the disturbance the baby birds shudder and then start emitting tiny, shrill cries. 

"Sshhh, Matt! You woke the babies." 

Matt raps his knuckles on the top of Foggy's head. "This was your idea in the first place. I honestly cannot believe you're sober right now."

"Just high on life, my friend. Got the cute springtime baby animal buzz." He pokes Matt in the underarm with his own cane, and, for Matt, that's the last straw in this ridiculous vertical dance they've got going. 

Matt hooks his arms around the tree branch above his head and twists his legs just so, tucking at the waist. He yanks Foggy off the ground for a long second and then sends them both crashing to the ground in a giggling heap. 

"Well, that was a disaster," Foggy muses, not bothering disentangle himself from Matt. He turns his head from where it's buried in Matt's shoulder. "You're okay, right?"

"You padded the landing." Matt pats Foggy's side with an open palm.

"Glad I'm good for that at least."

Matt slips off his glasses and reaches to ruffle Foggy's hair affectionately. It's the first time he's done either of these things, despite wanting to since almost the moment they met. It wasn't a urge he was familiar with, but by now he's decided he won't bother deciphering it. He wants to touch Foggy, so he will. He wants Foggy to see him, so he'll let him. "Thanks," he murmurs. 

Foggy hums, a low, pleased rumble in his chest. For once, he says nothing. His neck is craned and he's watching Matt's face. His heartbeat is strong and familiar and beating _home, home, home_.

They lay their for uncounted minutes, enjoying the first warm breeze of the season. Or maybe it's just the warmth of fond feelings. Classes are due to let out momentarily, but for now the sidewalk is mostly clear and Matt can mostly tune out people's whispers. If Foggy notices anybody staring at at them, he doesn't mention it.

"I did get a quick touch of the baby bird, by the way," Matt says, arm resting across Foggy's shoulders so his fingers can remain tangled in Foggy's hair.

"Yea?" 

"It was almost as soft as you are."

"Oh my god, Murdock, you're such a sap underneath all this," he shifts a little, careful not to let Matt slide out of his lap, "-oof- muscle."

"But..." Matt stutters haltingly, suddenly shy for reasons he doesn't quite understand but that have everything to do with the warmth spreading through his body. "But you like it?"

Foggy's grin is so wide Matt can feel it, right there on his shoulder, right there in their nestled heartbeats. After a second, Foggy leans back and looks directly into Matt's face. "I kinda love it," Foggy says. Then: "I kinda love it a lot."

"Good," Matt says. Then, more confidently and with a short nod. "That's... good."

They do make it to lunch, eventually. After a long, quiet rest under the tree, Foggy strikes up a conversation as if nothing between them has changed. For Matt, it feels like everything has changed, but also nothing at all.

As they walk back to the dorm, this time hand-in-hand rather than the elbow clutch of guide-and-friend, Foggy needles Matt until Matt finally confesses to having walked out of class. Foggy responds by "nearly dying, Matt, I am nearly dead with shock that you would voluntarily leave a class early." Matt shrugs, suddenly shy, but Foggy tugs him back to his side with their joined hands. He cheerfully veers into the familiar rhythm of good-natured complaints about Matt's academic prowess, gesticulating wildly but never dropping Matt's grip.

There's plenty that Matt doesn't think he can ever share with Foggy. His past, his abilities, his anger... it's all too much. But the things they can share? He'll cherish every one.

There's an email in his inbox when they finally make it back from lunch, full and happy and spinning increasingly fantastical stories about the adventures the baby bird -- whom they've named Norbert -- will be sure to grow into. 

`Mr. Murdock,` the message reads, `You should have been provided with an accessible version of the text from the first day of class at the very latest, if not before the semester had begun. I have already messaged Ian at the Disability Services Office to figure out what went wrong and to ensure this sort of problem does not arise again for your or any other student. Please let me know if there is any other support I can provide. I apologize for not having explicitly extended this offer sooner, apart from the boilerplate language in the syllabus.`

``

``

`I look forward to your essay in my inbox by the 12th. Your thesis statement intrigued me, something that hasn't happened the past few times I've taught this course at this level, and I confess my expectations of you have been high since. `

``

`Do take care that Mr. Nelson doesn't become too much of a distraction from your studies.`

``

`Cordially,  
- Yolanda Riddick`

**Author's Note:**

> Created because of a Team Red server creative sprint with the prompt "sharing."


End file.
